As a buyer and regional manager in retail, Tessa Wardenburg was repeatedly confronted with the limitations of universal size charts. To make it easier for consumers to find the right size and model, she developed the “size circular innovation matchmaker” or SCIMM together with Yannis De Cleene. Using this Belgian tool, webshops can give more accurate sizing advice.

Wardenburg sees SCIMM as a matchmaker between a customer and a piece of clothing. To find a good match, the tool measures and digitizes a brand’s entire collection, also taking into account customers’ individual body shapes and preferences. SCIMM identifies shoppers, links them to previous purchases and analyzes their return reasons.

When people make a purchase, not only their exact body measurements count, but also their personal preferences, for a tight or loose fit, for example. SCIMM is not a “quick fix”, as it takes a while for the system to fully master the preference data. But the tool will become better and better at knowing which items fit a specific customer.

In 2023, De Cleene and Wardenburg developed a Shopify plugin. You can add it to your webshop to provide personalized sizing advice. In a second phase, the SCIMM creators want to make their application available to consumers as well.